The Second Wife of River Song
by TrekInTandem
Summary: River Song has a new wife. River's already post-Library so she can come when the TARDIS calls her. This picks up at the end of the BBC's announcement video, covers what could be going on it, and proceeds to (re)introduce the 13th Doctor to her wife. PWP inspired by thoughts of "my second wife," post-announcement. Not as obsessed over as my usual posted fic but I couldn't wait.


Even now, tramping through the woods in the fourth month of her search for her bloody-minded TARDIS (it was just a good thing her pockets had still had plenty of snacks in them), the Doctor couldn't bring herself to be annoyed with the ole girl. She quite understood her box's reluctance to stay in the same place as herself, even if it had meant having to be a guest on her own damn ship and putting up with her former self for her last face's final hours. Sexy _hated_ paradoxes— _most_ paradoxes, she conscientiously corrected herself.

It was one thing to ask the TARDIS to put up with multiple Doctors or with walking, talking fixed points in time and another to ask her to put up with being in the same place twice at the same time. When you existed not linearly but in all of time at once, that meant something rather _different_. She couldn't imagine what it would be like, and she could imagine rather a lot, so yes, she quite understood the TARDIS deserting her. _That_ was new. Being _understanding_ about it, as she recalled, had not been a typical response to being tremendously inconvenienced; she hadn't had the patience for it.

But then everything was new, though after four months she was starting to get used to most of it.

The Doctor stopped and opened her hand to check the TARDIS key again. It had begun calling to her the moment she'd sprung into existence and had been leading her to the TARDIS since she'd figured out how to use it as a sort of homing device. Given the rate of her carefully even pace since the key had last appeared, if she was still heading in the right direction and getting closer to—to wherever she was going—then the decreasing periods of the key's materialization cycle should be just about—

With a crackle of vortex energy that stung her palm, the key appeared. Right on time.

Then, to her surprise came the whoosh of the TARDIS's breaks, that brilliant hopeful sound, and she looked up to see her beautiful blue box materializing right in front of her, not fifteen yards away, and framed neatly by two segments of a partially collapsed stone wall. The ole girl did love to make an entrance, and the Doctor smiled in affection and relief.

Given the rate of the key's cycling, she hadn't expected to find the TARDIS for days yet, and thus far the TARDIS had stubbornly refused to answer _her_ summons and come to her.

Grateful the ole girl had finally relented, the Doctor grasped the now continuously existent key between finger and thumb and headed toward the door.

Which opened on its own as she stepped over the remnants of the crumbling wall.

The Doctor laughed softly, pleased at what she thought was an eager welcome from her box, and then stopped short as the opening door gave her a full view of the controls—and the figure standing by them, the one paradox the TARDIS not only didn't hate but undoubtedly loved: River Song.

"Hello, sweetie," River said, smiling. "Did you lose something?"

"River!" the Doctor exclaimed, immediately beginning to blurt out the first question that occurred to her. "What—!" But then a new one came to mind and stampeded over the first. " _When_? When are you?" She was over the threshold and the ramp by the time the words were out, but River's answer froze her in place.

"Well, I may never read another book for the rest of my life," River said with a mock shudder and then smiled again. "Does that tell you anything?"

"After the—? But how are you here?" the Doctor demanded.

"Someone got impatient waiting for you," River said and patted the console. "Who else would she call?"

"She could have simply come back," the Doctor said pointedly, shooting a stern look at the console. "But River—the Library. How did you—?"

" _Please_ ," River interrupted. "All the surprise is a bit insulting! Did you really think I was going to stay in that computer forever? Don't you know me any better than that? I've been escaping all my life, Doctor! You never asked how I got out of Stormcage, not once, and I lost count of how many times I escaped _that_ place."

"Yes, well, I was afraid of the answer," the Doctor muttered—and was rewarded with River's full throated laugh.

"Liar."

The Doctor shoved her hands into the pockets of her now-oversized overcoat, ducking her chin briefly at being caught out, and then changed the subject. "Why _now_?"

"Well, I wasn't about to miss _this_ ," River exclaimed cheekily, gesturing at the Doctor's new form.

The Doctor shook her head, refusing to accept a non-answer to this particular question. "No, why didn't you come back to me after Darillium?"

"Oh, sweetie," River began, reaching out a hand, only for it to pause in the space between them and then drop back to her side. Lightening her tone, she changed tracks. "I rather thought you would have had enough of me for a while after Darillium."

"Liar."

River smiled and then shrugged prettily, turning her face toward her shoulder.

"All right. By the time I escaped, you had committed yourself to guarding Missy and taken up residence on Earth. If I'd shown up before that, you might _never_ have gotten around to finally responding to that summons from the Executioners. If I'd shown up after—well, you'd established such a nice routine for yourself in Bristol and you'd given up the running. You didn't need me dropping into all that order and stability and completely overturning the apple cart."

"I always need you," the Doctor said quietly, sounding a bit wounded that she could still doubt it.

"That's sweet, dear. Thank you—" and River reached out again automatically, this time without thinking twice, and patted the Doctor's arm, "but I wasn't about to get in the way when you finally had the chance to reconcile with your friend at last. I know how much a chance like that would have meant to you. How'd it turn out, by the way?"

With an effort, the Doctor cleared her expression of the silly smile it'd begun sporting and raised a brow pointedly. "You don't know? You seem to know everything else about my life. Speaking of which, you're not surprised to see this face—or—or . . . any of the rest of it . . . You knew." The Doctor took a slightly theatrical step back and swirled a hand in the air at her side, from hip to shoulder. "Your second wife, I presume?" she asked, expression lit with delight at the idea that she herself was the wife that her last face had reminded River of—and with no small amount of pleasure at her own cleverness.

River pursed her lips, though it didn't quite manage to cover her smile. "Well done," she said dryly. Then she shoved at the Doctor's shoulder and exclaimed, "Don't be so smug! It only took you almost a century to catch me in that particular lie!"

"Well, it was quite a _thorough_ lie!" the Doctor retorted. "You even had pictures to bolster the deception! Was it even true that you didn't recognize me at first in my last face?"

Now it was River looking smug. "I'm _very_ good at keeping secrets."

The Doctor beamed at her, forgetting for a long moment anything but how amazing her wife was and how much she loved that, and then her mind returned to the subject at hand. "And the reason for the elaborate deception?"

River shrugged. "The usual."

"Spoilers," the Doctor said resignedly, then let it go and spread her arms wide. "Well, then, wife, I assume that as usual you know more about me than I do myself. Care to accompany your second wife to the wardrobe and show me what the hell I wear in this face?"

"Oh, no," River said, laughing, "That'd be cheating. But I will very much enjoy watching you figure it out!"

"I _bet_ you _will_ ," the Doctor hummed, the mock irritation in her tone almost entirely drowned out by the suggestiveness, as they started out of the console room. "Well, I guess this time I don't need to ask what you think of the new body."

"I'll show you later, anyway, just for fun."

The Doctor laughed and slipped her arm around River's waist. It fitted differently, and not just because River was now taller than she was. It also fitted exactly the same—it fitted exactly _right_ , as always.

"Good of you, wife."

"I'm generosity itself, second wife."

"Oi! No—no, no, no! I don't like _that_! Don't call me _that_ ," the Doctor all but shouted, stopping in midstride to turn to a startled River, her entire face scrunching in revulsion and remaining fixed in that expression as she stuck out her tongue in disgust. "Blech! No, that won't do at _all_."

" _You_ started it," River said mildly, and then laughed at her ridiculous Doctor. Since the Doctor had pulled away during her outburst, she put _her_ arm around the Doctor's waist and snugged her _second wife_ against her side, drawing the Doctor with her on toward the wardrobe. The Doctor smelled like herself, but her clothes still held a trace of their owner, and River let the pang of loss for him, for another one of him lost, come and then let it go again. If she was good at anything (and she was good at many things—just ask her), she was good at living in the present.

"But don't worry, my love," River continued soothingly. "The 'second' was only ever a matter of chronology. Not that that ego of yours needs any stroking, but you've always been first in my heart." She gave the last words a slightly mocking twist for their sentimentality, which did nothing to make them sound any less true to her first husband turned second wife.

"I hate you," the Doctor whispered, stopping again and pulling River into a hug.

River nudged the shaggy hair aside with her nose and pressed her cheek against the Doctor's temple, smiling to herself. "No you don't." She turned her face into the Doctor's and breathed in the smell of her, familiar from long ago but a revelation all the same, and then turned her face to press a kiss to the hair behind the Doctor's ear.

The Doctor slid her arms farther around River's back and hugged her more tightly. "I suddenly don't mind these stupid overgrown clothes so much," she said, no longer all that keen to go to the wardrobe—or to move at all. Instead she felt calmer than she had since she'd regenerated. Finding the TARDIS had helped, but now she felt herself to be truly at home and safe and all to be right with her world. No, she didn't want to move.

In the Doctor's last body, River's head had lain against his collarbone and upper chest when they'd stood this way with River in her bare feet. The face before that had been almost the same height. Now the Doctor was roughly half a foot shorter than she had been, and at this moment, River in her heels seemed to just _tower_ thanks to the context of how she remembered things. It was strange and intriguing even as their embrace was unutterably comforting in its familiarity.

The Doctor drew her elbows in to bring her hands to River's back and further explore the contradictory experience of holding the same body she'd held so many times but now in an entirely new and drastically changed body of her own. She moved her hands up and down the barest fraction of an inch on River's shoulder blades for several moments and then progressed to sweeping them slowly up and down, extending the movement each time until her hands were moving from River's shoulders to the concave curve above her hips. Her hands, she noted, didn't cover nearly as much of River at once as they had.

She heard close by her ear the tiny smacking sound of River's lips parting as River sipped in a slightly sharper breath, and then River's hands were moving over her own back.

The Doctor felt her body react to these small signs from River, as responsive to everything about her wife as always—that much was exactly the same, but everything else about it was decidedly different. Her thoughts went quiet and she explored the new sensations mindlessly, seeking them, encouraging them with every stroke of River's back, every touch of River's hands and every brush of her hair.

She only came out of her daze when River's hands slid forward onto her hips as River leaned back, pressing wonderfully into her own hands, and turned her head to speak against her ear.

"Well," River said emphatically, with the weight of a conclusion reached. Then: "I can work around them. If you insist," she drawled, picking up where they'd left off with words while reaching her hand inside the loosely hanging overcoat before resettling it on the Doctor's hip. What had begun as a moment of affection and the reaffirming of it had taken an intensely erotic turn when her always-so-handsy Doctor had absently begun to caress her back and those hands had then grown increasingly ardent and possessive. The sudden eroticism of the moment had settled on her heavily and swept her under easily. Unsurprising as she'd been rather perfectly primed, all but a-tingle ever since she'd realized which Doctor she was fetching home. A first time was always exciting, but there was an additional edge to this one. This wasn't just the Doctor's first time with her or her first time in this new body; it was her first time in a woman's body, and River thrilled to the idea that she would cause each and every new sensation the Doctor would experience.

The Doctor made a vague noise of incomprehension, and River clarified her statement with some amusement. "The clothes. I can work around the clothes."

The Doctor felt the hand on her hip shift and then River's fingers bunching up the too-long hoodie to her waist. To complete the demonstration, one fingertip fleetingly brushed just barely along the skin above the waistband of her jeans. The Doctor was still marveling at her wife's face alight with humor when River leaned back in and lingeringly pressed her lips to the Doctor's cheekbone, near her ear.

River was doing that special thing she did where she kissed with the insides of her lips, and the kiss was all wet and hot against her skin. The Doctor turned her face back and forth against the sensation, all the better to feel it, and River let her mouth slide along her cheek as she did so, her fingers slipping under the hoodie and moving more firmly along her waist before she curled her hand around the gentle curve there, two fingers on the denim of her jeans and two on her skin.

The Doctor's mind snapped back into focus on the conversation and she shifted to face River directly. "I said I didn't mind them so much now. Not that I had grown so irrationally attached to them that I'd prefer wearing them when I could be naked with you," she said wryly.

"That's a relief," River teased. "Whatever would we do if you became irrationally attached to some article of clothing?" She ran her hand up the Doctor's side and down again to her hip before slipping it around her back to dip two fingers down her spine and just inside the waistband of her jeans.

The Doctor found their heads were very close again, but this time face to face, her own head having tilted back as if to bring her lips closer to River's. River's arm held her close, a solid warmth against her side and back, while the fingers of her other hand rubbed and rubbed at the skin over her spine. She felt _very_ aroused now and she swayed against River with the changing pressure of those fingers, her breathing shallow and fast.

River was staring into her eyes with apparently every bit as much absorption as she was experiencing. She watched as River licked her lips and then the fingers on her spine became the flat of River's hand pressing her forward and she leaned in to meet River, mouth to mouth.

River parted her lips just a bit and pressed her mouth against the Doctor's firmly, just shy of hard, a most emphatic and definitive kiss. Compulsion satisfied, she eased up until her lips just touched the Doctor's, clinging still to hers as they had after every kiss they'd ever shared, and began to kiss her slowly and sweetly, over and over, barely taking her mouth away in between. The Doctor's arms reached up her back and cradled her shoulders as she reciprocated each fleeting kiss, and River snaked her left arm inside the Doctor's coat as well and wriggled her hand beneath the hoodie so she could stroke it up and down the Doctor's back.

As River's other hand reached skin, the Doctor felt as if River was _finding_ her inside the voluminous clothes belonging to her past self, as if she'd been lost inside them and hadn't known it until she was rescued, and suddenly her throat was tightening and her eyes stinging. That was when River's words about attachment sparked a recollection—and two new impulses.

She brought one hand around and pushed aside River's hair to press her palm to one apple cheek, and this time when she kissed River back, she lingered and then swept her bottom lip down below River's and sucked lightly at it, before easing back to heed her second impulse. "River," she said, and slipped the hand on River's cheek into her hair, tangling her fingers in the curls (just as delightful a thing as ever, she was pleased to find), as she reached into the pocket of her jeans with her other hand.

River watched her curiously, lightly pushing her head back into the hand now cradling it. The fingers came out with a strip of cloth dangling from between them as the Doctor raised her hand.

The Doctor watched River's face go all tender and fond at the sight of her old bowtie. "Look at you," she whispered reverently, impetuously cupping River's other cheek with the hand holding the tie as she gazed at her. Then she grinned as she let River go. "What was that about irrational attachments to clothing, dear?"

River smiled, not bothering to firm up the melty feeling muscles of her face. She didn't feel any need to maintain pretenses, not with the Doctor, not anymore.

The Doctor, not needing more of an answer, reached around herself for River's left hand and took it in both of hers.

"Still the sentimental idiot," River said, ignoring the way her hearts fluttered as this new Doctor reached for her to make the same old gesture. She turned her hand over in the Doctor's, who looped one end of the tie around her palm and then looped the other around her own. As they circled their wrists, binding their hands more closely, River looked up to the Doctor's eyes, which she found already on her face. "Marrying me again, then?"

Words suddenly seeming too inadequate, the Doctor pressed into River again and kissed her, heatedly still but in a new way entirely this time, open mouth moving continuously over and against River's.

River laced her fingers of her bound hand through the Doctor's and wrapped her other arm snugly around the small of her back, tugging her close and kissing her back with equal fervor.

After several moments the Doctor pulled back, breathing hard, pleased and just that much more turned on when she saw that River's breath too had speeded up. "The wardrobe's out, right?"

"Oh yes." River ran her fingertips greedily over the Doctor's parted lips. "Our bedroom instead?"

The Doctor nodded, closing her eyes and letting her jaw fall open and her head fall slightly to one side and then back as River's fingers slid wetly over her mouth.

River made a sound of pure frustrated _want_ and pushed on the Doctor's opposite shoulder as she tugged on her bound hand, turning her around. "Our bedroom," she repeated a bit more loudly as she started them off down the corridor with another tug on the Doctor's hand, and the very next door they came to was the door to their bedroom because that was the way things worked when River was aboard the TARDIS.

"Oh, sweetie," River said a bit breathlessly as she closed the door behind them with a hip and embraced the Doctor again. "I have _so many_ things to show you."


End file.
